Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IN SEPTEMBER. "PEATHERY clouds are few and fair, Thistle-down is on the air, Rippling sunshine on the lake. Wild grapes scent the sunny brake, Wild bees murmuring take the ear, Crickets make the silence dear ; Butterflies float in a dream, Over all the swallows gleam. Here and yonder, high and low, Golden-rod and sunflowers glow, Here and there a maple flushes, Sumach reddens, woodbine blushes, Purple asters bloom and thrive,— I am glad to be alive ! A SUNSET IN NOVEMBER. " I HE leaden slowness of the prostrate clouds, The dark pre-eminence of naked boughs, The blind compulsion of the uncertain wind, The helpless rustling of the withered leaves, The listless movement of the abandoned waves, I marked them all, I made them all my own, To help me to the sunset I foresaw, And longed for fiercely that November day. It came at last, I know not how it came, A clouded fire showed smouldering in the west, Faded and seemed extinguished. Overhead The massy clouds, like giants out of dreams Uneasily awaking, rolled apart, Closed, wavered, opened, with a sudden gleam Of silvery edges; and then all was changed. Upsprang the breeze, the waves, the branches sprang; The brown leaves quivered and went by like birds; The smouldering clouds about the western hills Upblown rose huddling, and let see the sun— Red, rayless, half consumed,—beyond the Earth Slow drawing backward ; while around his place And over him increasing, the new light Burnt red, intense and glowing, here and there Veiled with a restless vapour that arose Confused and formless, like a fiery smoke. Lower he sank; o'erhead the parted clouds, Lightened and thinned and stretching them in flight, Flushed and grew crimson ; while beyond the lake Joyous with gold and purple, and beyond The feathery out...